The Impact of Byzantine and Roman Worlds to African Art
The Byzantine is part of the Roman Empire, which shared similar cultural aspects with the rest of Rome. Their art was mainly religious, featuring messages that connected to the Roman Catholic Church until the split experienced in the 11th Century (Cormack, 2018). Byzantine and Roman worlds, therefore, focus on making religious-related pieces that connect to what the rest of the world experiences. Africa also paid attention to religion as they worshipped their traditional gods, and also, later on, adopted Christianity passed through by missionaries. The impact of Byzantine and Roman regions towards African art is, therefore, evident through the kind of sculptures, mosaics, paintings, and woodwork that the people produced concerning their gods and powerful beings (Cothren & Stokstad, 2018).
The factor of religion borrowed from Byzantine art profoundly influences Egyptian and began to show it mainly through statues and sculptures as well as a mosaic in their temples. The artwork praises their different gods for the roles they played in society. Some of these gods featured included Ma’at, Hery, Djehuty, Set, Nut, Geb, Hathor, Knhum, and many others (Omatseye & Emeriewen, 2010). Their artwork was unique in such a way that they had not adopted Christianity, although they included their powerful beings just like those in Roman Catholic. People could go worship to these statues made between the 13th C BC until the 4th C AD. The Egyptian conservativeness resembles the Roman Catholics who also dwelt on expressing a similar message about God over time (Cothren & Stokstad, 2018).
Other parts of Africa were also religious in their art, including the masks from Gabon that were mainly from concrete and featured their traditional gods. The Ijaw masks from Nigeria was a significant artwork in the 20th century made from wood indicated water spirits that people would honor during celebrations and festivities. In the modern world, Africans still make art related illustrations of religion (Omatseye & Emeriewen, 2010). Christianity and Islam are a significant part of society with less traditional worship. Churches and mosques curve holy figures to indicate the places of worship. All these influences are related to the ancient Roman world that started making religion-related art.